


Though much is taken, much abides

by celebros



Series: that which we are, we are [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Mind Meld, Possible eventual Kirk/Spock, Post Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebros/pseuds/celebros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Spock chooses to feel things he swore never to feel again." Spock POV of the unseen two weeks from ST:ID. Lots of meldy goodness, existential angst, and emotional compromise. Part one of "that which we are, we are"; future parts will be mixed Kirk and Spock POVs with a lot of time with the crew and talking about Pike. Background Spock/Uhura with definite hints of K/S; the S/U is rocky but no Uhura hatin'. Also lots of Kirk/McCoy and Kirk/Crew friendship. (Complete.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For moments across the duration of Jim’s induced coma, Spock chooses to feel things he swore never to feel again.
> 
> Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the crew struggle through the two weeks at the captain's bedside.
> 
>  
> 
> Seven chapters -- the writing is completed, I'm just going to stagger posting. Part one of a series spanning the almost-a-year between the Incident and the end of the movie.

For moments across the duration of Jim’s induced coma, Spock chooses to feel things he swore never to feel again. Nyota keeps her hand in his for the duration of their first visit to their captain's bedside, but he feels loneliness. He peruses the precise formulas McCoy has pressed deep into the paper notepad in Kirk's room, the serum that saved his life, and he feels anger. In the sonic shower afterwards, he remembers his controls breaking, remembers that Nyota saw him cry, and feels confusion. He watches his captain’s life signs wobble their way through a seventh day, and feels fear.

 

There is still a dry rage in his chest, although he has given it no tinder for days. But there is no shame, and there is no uncertainty. Jim is going to wake. Starfleet's most elite medical professionals hypothesize he will have six weeks of rehabilitation; McCoy gruffly counters it won't take nearly that long after the serum. Spock is inclined to accept that Jim's CMO may know better.

 

He has spoken to his counterpart twice now. The older Spock had not seemed surprised to hear of Jim's sacrifice, but was astounded to hear of the properties of Khan's blood—"This was not so in my first universe." —and speculates that Khan had taken advantage of the technological advances during his year out of cryo to experiment on his already-remarkable physiology.

 

Spock knows that his counterpart appreciates when he follows instincts beyond the scope of logic in their conversation, so Spock recounts, with as much composure as he can, the words of the dying Kirk—"And this... this is what you would have done."  He attempts not to interpret the open shock in the Ambassador's face, but it's too late.

 

He wants to talk to Jim about this. No one can say when that will be possible.

 

Nyota will not want to discuss the things Spock finds in his head, the possibilities of their fates in other universes, about which it is surely illogical to speculate. She has not been well while Jim has been comatose. She has not initiated her usual measure of contact, and has spent a disproportionate quantity of her free time in her quarters since filing her report as head of communications. When they have come together for brief encounters—two coffee dates, a business meeting, and a single sexual encounter—he has sensed that she is unsure how to speak of what happened. What she saw Spock do. She feels strongly about it, and Spock wishes she did not. His own emotional responses to the event are difficult to process; he does not have space in his mind to meditate on Nyota.

 

He finds himself alone at Jim's side. The bed, wide and flat, causes an illusion of frailty. The machines do not emit noises, and their light is faint in the darkened room. Spock examines his captain's face. He watches the minimal lift and recession of his chest. The loosely curled bunches of his fingers atop the white sheets. The angle of his pale mouth, set downward - not the open peace he'd seen in it in that moment, the one slotted in his memory somewhere he can access it too frequently - the moment before rage had blurred his vision. The sallowness of his skin and the mottled bruises on his cheeks have also been erased.

 

Later, Spock returns to his flat. As soon as he enters, Nyota's presence is evident. The lamp is on in his living room, her leather jacket cast onto the chaise. His temperature settings have been changed - reduced by four degrees Celsius, their standard compromise.

 

She is crumpled in his bed, asleep atop a cocoon of his sheets. He cannot bring himself to watch her in her stillness the way he has just watched the captain. He hangs her jacket in the front closet, pours a glass of water and sets it on his bedside table for her, turns off the lamp, and kneels to meditate.

 

When Jim wakes, Spock has a request to make. A message to pass on, if Jim will see it. He buries himself once more in these details and the room fades away.

 

When it returns, it is still dark out, but Nyota is boiling water for tea. She is standing in the kitchen wearing only undergarments and a long shirt. Her legs are dappled with light from the kitchen appliances. Spock stands and watches her. It is bearable now that she is in motion. Spock hypothesizes that seeing her sleep puts him in the uneasy state of mind that compares her state to Jim's. That it forces him to imagine that she were comatose. He knows, without thinking through this hypothesis, that that is not true.

 

“Good morning,” she says softly without turning around. “There's a comm for you.”

 

He slips to the console without a word. It is from Admiral Archer. They have scheduled Admiral Pike's memorial, it says, they are sorry but it can wait no longer. There will be a small private service tomorrow with family and colleagues, and a public ceremony three days hence for citizens to attend. Spock palms the console shut and chooses not to feel despair. Nyota is at his back swiftly, her palm against his mid spine.

 

“Kirk?” she asks, her breath as short as his. She has been waiting anxiously for him to take this comm, he senses. He knows that he is near the top of Dr. McCoy’s very literal list of individuals to comm should the Captain’s status change. Nyota is not.

 

“Negative,” he says.

 

“Oh,” she says, and although the fierce tension is gone from her limbs, her face falls. She knows, then, what the message must say, and knows how hard and quietly Spock and Boyce and McCoy had argued for the services to be delayed a day more, and one more. “When?”

 

“Tomorrow,” Spock says. Too soon even to consider hoping for.

 

Another message arrives before they have finished their tea. Jim's fever has not abated, will not abate; they are considering quarantine as an alternative to the immunoreplacement serums Boyce has been developing. Spock forwards it without comment to his elder counterpart, who initiates a video call almost immediately.

 

“Mr. Spock,” they both say. Nyota chokes a laugh into her tea, and the Ambassador hears the background noise and cocks an eyebrow.

 

“Am I interrupting, Commander?”

 

“Not as such,” Spock responds. “I trust any matters you desire to address can bear Nyota's company?”

 

“Indeed. Good morning, my dear,” the Ambassador says with warm familiarity.

 

“Good morning, Ambassador.” She is smiling. Her shoulders have dropped, loosened in sudden comfort. Spock pushes through uneasiness. The ambassador speaks again.

 

“Thank you for keeping me updated on Jim's condition. I had not previously been aware that he was in Dr. Boyce's care. I assume this is Philip Boyce?”

 

“That is correct. His qualifications are unparalleled amongst the surviving physicians.”

 

“I would expect no less.”

 

Spock wishes to say that such expectations are illogical in a world so changed by Nero's incursion. In Spock Prime's world, more life paths were changed than anyone had yet realized or ever could. The computer record of that world had been destroyed with the Jellyfish, and Spock Prime's knowledge of the universe is limited.

 

But Spock is aware of his counterpart's lingering grief, aware that such chastisement is unfruitful at present. He suspects his counterpart perceives a tightening of his face, but he nods and does not respond verbally.

 

“As for Jim’s condition,” the elder Spock says gently, “I may have suggestions if the situation does not resolve itself along a reasonable timeline - a tolerable timeline, perhaps I should say, since the circumstances defy reason. But at this point I am unwilling to interfere. I am sure you understand. I wish I could act immediately to spare you the inconvenience, but my conscience will not allow it.”

 

Spock looks down at his hands. Nyota says, “Of course, Ambassador. Thank you,” quickly, although not so quickly as to be rude, and terminates the call. Spock settles his forehead against the console. He is shaking. His controls are failing in front of her—again. _Logic. Serenity. Control._

 

“My apologies, Nyota,” he says smoothly when he's recovered. “I find myself... somewhat irrational where my counterpart is concerned. I should have been more attentive in my meditation; it is clear that I am compromised.” Nyota looks pained.

 

“You’ve had a lot to worry about, in your meditation,” she says, and he does not correct her on the semantics of _worrying_. The sentiment is… perhaps truer than he has given himself allowance to admit. But Nyota touches his forearm. “Do you want to sleep?” she asks, her voice very soft. “I'm not due for repairs for another three hours.”

 

“My services may be of use to Dr. McCoy,” Spock says. “I wish to be present if the decision is made to transfer the captain to quarantine. You would be welcome to accompany me until such time as you are needed elsewhere.”

 

She doesn't. He feels relief.


	2. two.

There are matters that Spock has not spoken of with his captain. They were not, he had justified at the time, recollections that bore repeating in the company of others, although he had known that they would be gratefully received. So on the shuttle over the surface of Qo’noS, when he had felt the tension deepen upon his mention of the final mind-meld with Admiral Pike, he had focused his attention on the misunderstanding at hand and had saved the further explanations for later.

There hadn’t been time. Perhaps he could have made time, on the shuttle back to the Enterprise, but he hadn’t known that their hours together were winding to a close. Now eight agonizing days have passed and Spock sits again at Kirk’s bedside and wishes they could have spoken on the matter.

Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Chekov frequently speak aloud when they visit the captain in his repose, as if he is able to hear them, but Spock has not done so. Nyota speaks only to Spock, when they are in the room together, although her eyes frequently flicker to Kirk’s face as if waiting for him to react. Doctor McCoy communicates with his comatose friend and commanding officer in gestures, adjusting his pillows or the height of his bed, the lights and temperature, sometimes brushing hair from Jim’s forehead when sweat has made it cling. He mutters to himself with the same irritation he always has when Jim has been injured.

Scotty doesn’t come closer than the doorway.

Jim’s fever returns in spikes, but it’s healthy now, Doctor Boyce says. The purge that threatened his recovery is complete, and now the immune system is rebuilding and attacking the remaining contaminants fiercely. Spock considers dipping into the captain’s mind, ascertaining his psychological wellbeing, his continued neurological function, but there is no justification for such interference. He is not a medical professional. His intrusion would be unsolicited and inappropriate. And self-serving; he cannot deny that.

Still, he considers it, most of all when the displays hum to life with abnormal readings.

The memorial service for Admiral Pike takes place at 1700 hours. Spock sits at Captain Kirk’s bedside rather than attend. When Doctor McCoy had gestured to the door and asked if Spock would join him to walk down, he had explained that he prefers to stay, lest Jim’s status change. McCoy’s eyes had lingered on him for a moment, then on Jim, but he had not attempted to make a logical argument about the likelihood of that happening—or lack thereof. Spock understands, because it has been long enough that he understands this sort of thing now, that McCoy does not want to hear the long odds quoted to him, although Spock has of course calculated them carefully for just such a challenge.

The quiet should be peaceful, should invite light meditation or a calming cup of tea. It is not and it does not. But it does allow Spock to hear the soft sound that escapes his Captain’s lips as the sun sets beyond the ruined city. It is not quite a moan, but heavier than a whimper. Jim’s face turns a few degrees—away from the window and the reflected light coming through it, Spock thinks. Without thinking, he rests his fingertips against the back of Jim’s hand, which lies atop the careful white sheets motionless as it has for days and days.

Where ordinarily he would have felt a dimmed surge of energy, the buzz of a life under his psi-sensitive fingers, a rustle of emotions if the individual in question was human, there was a soft, cottony quiet. It was not emptiness. There was texture and shape to the space of Kirk’s mind still. But it was like the rest of his body, like the ward, muted, without even an echo of presence. He withdraws with as much calm as he can muster and looks at the vital signs. Thirty-six seconds ago there had been an increase in brain activity of sixteen percent. Within three seconds, however, it had dropped back to the former levels.

Not activity worth mentioning to the doctor, when he returns that night. He might see it on the charts, when he reviews them later, and if he asks, Spock will tell him his observations, but it is not worthy of report.

Spock sleeps that night, rather than meditating, and drowns in that muted silence in a sticky slow-motion dream, his mind delving deeper into what it had touched and finding it no fuller than the waking encounter. He wakes unsettled and meditates for a few moments in the sonic showers. His comm beeps, in the room outside. It beeps again as he is dressing in gray. Both messages are from Nyota.

“I would welcome your company,” he tells her.

She is there in less than thirty minutes, her face pink from walking against a strong wind. She kisses him very gently before slipping off her heeled boots and sitting beside him on a chaise lounge he’d bought during one of his mother’s visits to San Francisco.

Spock turns his face to hers and she accepts to invitation to kiss him again. This time their mouths part, her fingers touch his jaw, and he clasps a palm protectively against her cheek to draw her closer. She lets her hands trail down his throat to his chest. She is looking at him, her eyelids fluttering with the pleasure of their kiss. He senses from the path of her hands that she desires more, and he is willing. But she cups his hand in her own and brings it to her face, and he withdraws. Her emotions break across her face before he can speak. She is hurt; she does not try to hide it. Spock sighs.

“I am not—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She sounds frustrated. “I just—it’s what we always used to do when our minds were too far apart, Spock, do you remember?”

“I am not capable at present of continuing with both paths,” he explains. “If I were to join our consciousnesses, I would be unable to engage in physical sexuality with you. I am amenable to either route, or neither.”

The frustration fades slightly into puzzlement. “Why?”

“My emotional compromise is significant, Nyota,” he says. “I have not achieved the requisite state of deep meditation to calm myself; I will require significant periods of meditation to find equilibrium. I could not bring your mind into the midst of such chaos and maintain physical desire. There is too much I would need to set aside, to join with you physically, for me to be able to open a direct doorway to that disarray.”

He expects her expression to gentle into sympathy, understanding. Instead she pinches her lips together and draws her eyebrows into concentration. “You haven’t been talking to me about this,” she said. “I want—I want you to be able to share these things with me, Spock.”

“As I am now.”

“No. Sooner. You’ve been finding other things to blame it on. Insufficient time for meditation, or the influence of your counterpart. But I’ve known, or at least I’ve suspected, that you’re more wrecked than you’ll let on.” She lets out a harsh laugh with no humor. “Spock, I saw you there. In Engineering. I saw you crying. I saw you _scream_ Khan’s name. Those were things I hadn’t seen even when your mother died.” She holds up her hands as if to retreat from what she’s just said. “And I cried too. Please don’t mistake me. I don’t begrudge you that emotion; I just…”

“If it is what you wish,” he says stiffly, “I will meld with you so that you may experience my dis-order. I am not unwilling, Nyota, to share the deepest parts of myself with you. I would not be ashamed for you to perceive them.”

“But it is not your wish,” she says softly.

“It is not,” he says.

“All right,” she nods, and there’s clarity in her face now, the deluge of emotions cleared. “I respect that. As an in-between, though, I’d like to understand something. May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t come to Chris Pike’s memorial,” she says, and the jagged edges are back in her voice. Tears spring to her eyes. “Why?”

He feels sorrow, and understands that he has caused her pain. He inhales several times before speaking, letting the emotion lie beside the clarity. Then he says, “It is difficult to explain. But if you recall, I did mention to you and the captain that I was joined with the admiral’s consciousness at the very moment of his passing. I have experienced his passing in the most immediate and intimate way I am able. I did not feel that I could gain anything from a ceremonial gathering.”

“I have no way of understanding,” Nyota says, “no basis of comparison, and I know that. But I know you see logic in joining with comrades, with friends, with people you care for, to support each other. Maybe you couldn’t have gained anything by attending, but you surely couldn’t have lost anything.” She takes a deep breath. “I can’t help but think that you just couldn’t bear to leave Jim’s side.”

“Commander Kirk,” he says softly, “arrived in the room to which I had moved Admiral Pike less than fifteen seconds after the admiral’s passing. We knelt together by the body. The captain ascertained that there was no pulse. I watched his controls break—his own layers of logic, present though defined by his human parameters, stripped away to raw emotion. He clutched at the admiral’s uniform. He rested his head against his chest. I witnessed that death just as immediately as I had just felt it in my mind, through the captain’s grief. And then he stood, pressing his hand to my shoulder as he did so, and turned away to return to the conference room.” He closes his eyes and lets the memory respin itself in his mind, the whir of engines and wind outside, the red blare of emergency lights against the walls, the smell of burning, glass crunching under Jim’s feet as he’d walked away. “Considering the intense closeness of their bond… it seemed a fitting tribute to Admiral Pike’s memory to stay at the hospital with the captain and ensure that he was not alone, regardless of his state of awareness.”

Nyota is crying softly. She does not respond. She stands and crosses the room. He hears the small sink outside the ‘fresher turn on, and she splashes the water on her face, and when she returns to the room she says, “Well, let’s ensure that he is not alone again, shall we?”

They sit at his bedside, alternating between silence and quiet conversation with Dr. McCoy, until Spock gets a comm from Headquarters, at 1453. As he stands to leave, she grabs his arm.

“I’m not angry with you,” she says, “but I still… I don’t understand. And I want to. You knew Pike better than almost anyone. I just don’t understand how you could stand not to be there.”

“Memorials are a very human tradition,” he answers. “They are designed as a way to organize emotion and allow its appropriate output. I have nothing remaining to feel about Admiral Pike’s death, and I suspect such an attitude is unlikely to be welcome amongst mourners.”

“That’s not true, though,” she says. “That’s not all memorials are. Not at all. They’re about telling stories. Finding out things that you didn’t know about the person, learning about his life. You had stories you could have told that would have fit in just fine.”

Spock does have stories. But they are for Jim’s ears only, and he does not think Nyota would react favorably to hearing him say as much.

“I regret that I am unable to explain myself to you to your satisfaction,” he says. “Nyota. Please understand that it was not a decision I made lightly. The continuation of this conversation seems fruitless. If it is guilt you desire from me, I cannot offer you any. I am similarly unable to manufacture regret.”

_It’s what we always used to do when our minds were too far apart,_ she had said, and he sees in the lines of her face that they are too far apart now, but there is no time to mend it.


	3. three.

When eleven days have passed, Spock sends a message to his counterpart on New Vulcan.

_Ambassador Spock, I wish to speak with you on the parameters of your noninterference. If you are willing, I can accept your video call at your earliest convenience. – Commander Spock_

The call is initiated two hours later. Spock has managed forty-three minutes of deep meditation when the incoming comm beeps on his console. His counterpart seems to know.

“Mister Spock,” the elder says, “I was not surprised to receive your message. I hope Jim is well.”

“Captain Kirk’s state is unchanged,” Spock says coolly, wishing to emphasize that eleven days of induced coma are not conducive to being well. “Will you speak with me about the subject I indicated in my message?”

“The parameters of my noninterference. Yes and no,” he says, and Spock has so tired of hearing those words from him, _yes and no_ , it seems to be impossible for the elder to give a definitive answer. “I will not negotiate with you, Spock; my principles are my own, and I cannot allow you to rob yourself of your own resourcefulness by providing you the answers I riddled out in my own timeline. I have heard rumor,” his eyes twinkle, “that you are as steadfast a follower of the Prime Directive as I myself was during my career, but I cannot help but feel that your curiosity in these instances, your choices to repeatedly reach out to me, are a request for me to break what you would call the Temporal Prime Directive, and it seems… perhaps ironic is not the proper word.”

“Hypocritical,” Spock supplies. “I have not contacted you to request you reconsider your stance.”

“But it has occurred to me also,” the elder continues without acknowledgement, “how needlessly frustrating it must have been for me to tell you that there are avenues you have not followed yet that I cannot share with you. So I will elaborate one step further to spare you some of that existential anguish, my young counterpart.” He smiles. Spock breathes. “I do maintain that at present, there is no indication that Jim’s mind is in danger. But even were it so, I am not carrying great medical secrets from your future, Spock. That which I would suggest you attempt to bolster Jim’s health is a solution that you yourself have accessible to you.”

He recognizes, from a distance, the cascade of anger that would be crashing over him if he had not had time to meditate. As it is, he is able to set it aside and calmly say, “Then I infer you are referring to the possibility of a mind meld.”

The elder says nothing.

“Proceeding with that assumed, I will inform you that I have considered such an action but have deemed it undesirable. As I have never mind-melded with the captain in the past, to do so while he is unconscious—while, insofar as we know, he has no filters available to him and no way to direct what I may and may not access—would be an incredible invasion of privacy.”

“Ah,” the elder Spock says, and looks… worried. “It is true that to initiate a meld on a mind that has never experienced one, regardless of the noble intentions, is unethical in most terms. However, _I_ have melded with James T. Kirk, and I believe from that experience that he is willing to undergo the meld under serious circumstances. I cannot imagine this would not qualify as one.”

“This is not your James Kirk,” Spock says. He keeps his voice as quiet as he can. He wants to shout it. Spock the elder’s face betrays no emotion, but he responds.

“While it is true that I melded repeatedly with the Kirk in my timeline, without ill effects, I was not referring to my contemporary, Spock. I have melded with _your_ Jim Kirk.”

Spock understands suddenly. His disquiet grows.

“You initiated a meld with the captain in the aftermath of the destruction of our home planet,” he says, unable to keep accusation entirely from his voice. “It perplexes me that having chosen such an action, you could speak to me of ethics, Mister Spock. You seriously endangered an unsuspecting human, _a man you have called friend_ , with such proximity to the profound psychic damage we faced on that day.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Spock answers, his voice gravelly with age and no small measure of sorrow that he does not attempt to temper. “Perhaps I was wrong to impose such a risk on Kirk’s mind without his full understanding. But you, of all those who know me, understand how deep my own emotional compromise was on that day. Nevertheless, I deemed the action worth the risk. I did it for both of you. And for your world.” His gaze pierces. “Perhaps you might take a similar risk.”

***

Shortly after the termination of the communication with New Vulcan, Spock receives another comm.

“Doctor McCoy,” he acknowledges. The doctor has almost solely communicated in text waves. “Do you require my presence?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” McCoy answers. His face is tight.

“What is the captain’s condition?”

“You’ll see when you get here,” McCoy says. “Call it an incentive to hurry your Vulcan ass down here.” He ends the comm.

Spock had previously estimated that the trip from his apartment to the hospital took fifteen minutes by private vee, but he encourages the driver to take measures to decrease that. They arrive in nine. McCoy is waiting off the lift.

“I wish I could give you the science on it,” the doctor says, “but we don’t really know what’s causing it. Any of a million things would make sense, so it’s not like it matters. Fact is, he’s in pain. Started mild this morning, spiked about an hour ago. Boyce suggested I call you.”

“I do appreciate it,” Spock says. “As I have stated, I would like to be present for such occurrences or complications. I assume the captain’s newly rebuilt nervous system is unready for analgesics?”

“You assume right.”

“Is there an operating alternative solution at present?”

“Ah,” McCoy says, “well, I checked with Boyce, and he gave me the all clear to ask you—if you’re willing, it might be worth trying some of your Vulcan hoodoo.” He waggles his fingers near his own face to clarify.

“I was under the impression that your personal medical opinion was that my ‘hoodoo’, as you call it, was—”

“Creepy as all hell,” McCoy confirms, “confusing, invasive, I know, I have a reputation to uphold. But…” He doesn’t look Spock in the eye. “After the red matter… I saw it done. In my medbay, with the survivors, I saw some of them…” He does the strange waggling gesture again. “And I watched the chemical reactions. It worked on the pain, the physical as well as the kind I couldn’t measure. I don’t know if you could transfer that from a half-Vulcan half-human to a full human, but I thought it was worth asking.” He appears defensive. Spock gathers that he expects to meet refusal.

Spock turns his head to look through the door. A privacy screen has been drawn around Jim's bed, but the red on the adjacent charts is unhidden.

"My hesitation is due to the captain's inability to consent," Spock admits. "As his chief medical officer and his friend, do you believe this is an ethical course of action?"

"He'd consent if he could, Spock. I'm not sure there's much a sane man wouldn't consent to, to relieve this kinda pain." He looks at Spock, finally, and says, "You know, he didn't mention it to me in our official medical debrief—more fool him—but when we had drinks planetside after his chest candy ceremony, Jim mentioned that Other-You had melded with him. He kind of reveled in it. He's been trying to get in your pointy head since the beginning. I think if he's mad about this later, it'll just be because he won't be able to remember it. So I wouldn't worry about his consent."

***

When Spock first joins Jim's mind, the stabs of pain are there, but the filter of Jim's consciousness is not. The pain is searing, reminiscent of deep muscular cramping but invading spaces it has no right to. Spock endures the pain for long enough to ascertain that the spark of Jim’s mind is still present, muffled beneath layers of drugs, and then draws himself out. McCoy looks alarmed.

“What is it? You said it would take a while; you were barely in there five minutes.”

“The Captain’s induced coma is inhibiting the necessary centers I would access to assist him in reducing his pain,” Spock says, standing. McCoy gestures them back into the hallway.

“I could safely pull him out at this point,” the doctor says, “I mean, I could take him off the IVs, and in an hour or two he’d be clear. But it would make the pain much worse, in the meanwhile. I don’t know if it would be worth it.” He looks askance at Spock. “I don’t know if you could take it, either.”

“I believe such a course of action is at present the best we have available to us,” Spock says. “When I took into account the pain we see from the ongoing neurological scans, I underestimated his state of consciousness. A sleeping mind, a dreaming mind, I could access and assist, but his current level is—”

“Practically nonexistent. I get you,” McCoy says. “I don’t know that I like it, Spock. But even without the medications, he’d be deep under still, anyway. So I don’t think taking him off of them—temporarily, mind you—can do any harm. Once he wakes, he shouldn’t remember any of this. And he’s not going to wake up and hurt his damn fool self.” The doctor speaks with a softness uncharacteristic of his voice, his drawl extending slightly with the last sentence, reminding them both of the incident in which Jim had reopened wounds by returning to duties before he had been cleared.

The doctor leaves the room and returns a few moments later with Jim’s attending physician, Philip Boyce, in whom the elder Spock had expressed a great deal of confidence. “Bones tells me he’s seen the meld in action,” Boyce says to Spock. “And I know Geoff M’Benga has said the same thing. Do you have any estimate on the extent to which you can reduce the pain? I don’t want to increase it by forty percent by bringing him partially out and then find out you can only push it down twenty.”

“I am afraid I cannot estimate with any degree of certainty, as I have never melded with Captain Kirk before. I am not aware of how he will react to my mind, nor of how difficult it will be to bring his into compliance with my healing instruction. Furthermore, it is prudent of me to admit that such an attempt has very rarely been made on a human patient. The procedure is extremely effective for Vulcans, even or especially those who are compromised by illness, emotion, or psychic damage.” Spock hesitates. “However, there have been some few instances, and I have been privy to one such and deemed it both safe and effective.”

“I know such things are private amongst your people, but can I ask the circumstances?”

“I am gratified by your respect for my species’ custom of privacy. In this instance, your curiosity is professionally appropriate. The meld I witnessed was between my Vulcan father and my human mother. She was injured on a journey, and my father was successful in stabilizing her until we reached medical attention. Having myself touched her mind after the experience, I would estimate through the viewing of the experience that he reduced her pain reception by eighty-one percent.”

Boyce nods curtly. “Acceptable. In case it doesn’t work, though, we’ll have a heavy dose ready to throw him back out.” The last is directed at Doctor McCoy.

“All right,” McCoy says, and then grumbles at Spock, “but we don’t want that, so this had better work, dammit.”

“I share your sentiment, Doctor, and will endeavor to the best of my ability to seek the desired outcome.”

“Ha,” McCoy says, and he and Boyce bustle from the room again. Spock past the privacy curtain and sits in a gently curved chair at the bedside. In the dim light from the screened window, he can see the twitching muscles in Jim’s face. He places both hands on the captain’s wrist, carefully avoiding his palm and fingers, and turns so that the gentle pulse faces upward. The number on the chart says 47 beats per minute. Spock confirms that four times over before Doctor McCoy returns.

“Okay,” he says, “I’m going to bring him down to sixty percent of the sedation medication. Will you need to test at each level, or will you know when he’s there enough for you to…” A third time, he waggles his fingers. He appears uncomfortable with the words for what they plan to do.

“I should be able to initiate light interface through contact,” Spock says. “I believe I will become aware when his state of consciousness is sufficient for me to join him.”

It takes nearly an hour, during the course of which Doctor McCoy becomes very anxious and exhibits several physical tics that might serve to irritate a fellow human. Spock does not allow himself to be distracted as Jim’s heart rate rises to 52, 61, 74. Sweat stands on the captain’s face after thirty-six minutes. He moans softly after forty-nine minutes. At fifty-two minutes, his entire body shudders. Spock’s eyes cut to McCoy’s, and their gazes meet at a point between their bodies, tense and aware.

“I don’t know if I can drop it lower than this, Spock,” McCoy says softly. “Look at him. I just… I don’t know if I can.”

“I do not believe it will be necessary,” Spock answers, matching the doctor’s volume. “I estimate five more minutes before my contact would be beneficial to Jim’s consciousness.”

Doctor McCoy smiles, just slightly, a quirk in his lips. “He was always trying to get you to call him Jim,” he says.

“I expect he will continue to persist in the effort when he wakes,” Spock says, and prepares himself.


	4. four.

Spock has not felt such physical pain in his own body, but he has experienced it before, in Admiral Pike’s mind, in the brief seconds before his death. He banishes that thought, experiences a moment of fear and disquiet as he considers the possibility that Jim’s consciousness sensed that memory, and then banishes his own emotion with a calm borne first of desperation, then a more logical _determination_ , then simply with will. He had thought himself beyond the need for such measures by the time he splayed his fingers across the captain’s face, but he had not expected the pain to be so intense. This was illogical of him. Nevertheless.

The pain’s characteristics have been altered since last Spock attended them. Instead of the low, indiscriminate cramping, it is now clustered and sharp, radiating from—Spock focuses, spreads himself throughout the consciousness—the sacral plexus (presenting as sacral plexopathy; why has the serum not repaired?—irrelevant at present); the lower right phrenic nerve (referring to the C4 vertebra, but originating from the small phrenic bundle across the base of the lung); the dorsal branch of the left ulnar nerve—

The pain intensifies. Spock loses control again, momentarily, and begins again to catalogue the sources of the pain. Once he has done so, the process of relieving them will be simplified. He extends a tendril of consciousness toward the light of consciousness that is now barely cobwebbed, the thick sleep that had cottoned it in distance faded to near-irrelevance, and in response to his gentle prod a painfully familiar presence rises near him.

 _Captain,_ he projects, and with his physical body inhales deeply. He imagines Doctor McCoy in the quiet room, staring at their bodies, interpreting each movement, his fingers steepled in stress.

Jim responds to the image Spock has conjured with one of his own—not conjecture but a memory. Doctor McCoy is near in proximity to him, his hands on Jim’s shoulders, almost in an embrace. There is emotion; Spock does not attempt to access it.

 _Yes,_ he says.

Flickering. Then an image of a corridor, a chair, sliding doors, a bed, a console, a glass door, a warp core that Spock has only seen in holos. _The ship._ Jim is asking a question, whether he knows it or not.

 _Out of danger._ Were he not under the influence of the meld, he believes his throat would tighten. He pauses, but there is no response. _Our minds are one,_ he says. _Your pain—I will assist._

The consciousness fades gently, then flushes back, the pain sharp and present as if to defy the statement he has just made.

Spock says, _Here,_ and rests his awareness on each of the parts he has identified. He feels, in his physical body, beneath his fingers, the stiffening, the tightening of muscles, the spasm, and thinks again of McCoy. This awareness, however difficult, is necessary for their minds to join to heal.

Jim’s mind is very weak, still, fluttering as a small bird under Spock’s careful hands. But it is brushing against Spock’s. Their minds are still two, not one in their togetherness, but Spock can reach past the border of Jim’s consciousness. He does so. He breathes awareness there. Jim flutters. Spock does not withdraw.

 _Tell me._ There are no images. _May I assist you?_ Jim flails, does not respond to his words. Spock focuses again, and tries, _Let me help._

The last word echoes between their consciousnesses. Jim has latched onto it. He has understood it, or recognized it; it is familiar to him. This is the closest Spock has come to an answer, so he proceeds.

He reaches in, past fear and fear and fear, past a wave of sorrow that Spock remembers and can name _Christopher Pike_ , past fury, and finds the small seed of Jim’s calm, buried so deep he is not certain when it last blossomed, when it last saw light.

His own calm has been… disturbed, now, for twelve days, perhaps for much longer. But he has pulled it back together, nurtured its fragility, and now he opens the flower of his calm to Jim’s own calm and lets the two lights blend and become _one and together_.

When two Vulcans meld for the purpose of enhancing healing, the joining of their calmnesses is a joining at their very center. Once their calms are joined, the things at the edges blur in peacefully; there is nothing larger in a healthy Vulcan mind than the center of calm.

Spock’s calm is joined with Jim’s, but this is not its completion. The calm is not Jim’s center, and—he finds with some surprise—it is not his own, either. When he and Nyota had melded, on several occasions to enhance their lovemaking and on a handful more simply to build intimacy and experience one another, this had not been the case. He sees now that what he said to Nyota, about his mind being too fractured to maintain both a meld and sexual desire, was more true than he had realized.

He opens his physical sensations to Jim’s. The pain that flows into his consciousness is halved by his own body’s relative comfort. _Pain shared is pain lessened._ There is a proverb; this is his first literal experience of the concept. But there is still a nebulous mind beyond the pain and the calm, which billow against each other like conflicting winds and threaten to shred that which is between them.

Spock opens his fear.

Spock opens his rage.

Spock opens his love.

And this is Jim. Their minds, one and together. It is not overwhelming, and about this Spock should be surprised. To open his mind to these things he has so often and so vehemently denied is contrary to his instincts, but he has done so and finds himself still whole, still focused on the task at hand. Confusion echoes across his part of the bond; Jim echoes it, although it is quiet.

The fusion of these things takes over. Jim’s thoughts are sluggish, but his body is at constant struggle. Even the sharing of Spock’s calm has given him no control over himself. The pain is lessened, the sensation dimmed, but it is not enough.

 _Captain,_ he says, _help me to eliminate your fear._

Images dash across his consciousness. _Fields, cliffs, the sun. Sex, light, pain, glass. Fire, damage, an empty glass, a staircase, a chair._ His first instinct is to take each of these images and dig into them, pull them apart, but instead he forces himself to let them go, shattering, weak, distant. Each image flies to the distance. Spock breathes in meditation, breathes out control, breathes in infinite diversity in infinite combinations, breathes out uncertainty, and Jim begins to think of breathing.

Spock sees his own face, Pike’s face, the face of a handsome woman, Nyota’s face as it was several years ago, when her cheeks were slightly wider and her smile with it. A child’s face. Doctor McCoy’s face. With them comes a swell of sorrow that he does not recognize as his own, although he feels it as his own.

These, he focuses on. He accesses his own memory of Doctor McCoy saying, “It worked,” his face full of hope. He projects an image of Nyota framed in the doorway of the hospital room, a book tucked under her arm. He cannot bring himself to find an image of Admiral Pike that would suffice to communicate what he wishes Jim to know, but as he realizes this, he finds himself already remembering Pike sitting across a desk from him saying, “I’m not sure there’s anything I can say to you that you’ll understand, and that’s a damn hard thing after I’ve watched Jim walk out of here in pieces,” and Jim has seen that.

He calculates that the pain has been reduced by 42.7% since he entered Jim’s mind.

 _Captain,_ he says, as he continues to work, _Your body is healing. You will wake. We will rebuild that which has been lost to us. There are matters we may speak of._ He pulls a breath into Jim’s lungs, through Jim’s mouth, and then does the same with himself. The pain ebbs. 

In that state, most of what connects the captain’s mind to his body is pain. The reduction of pain is separating him, therefore, from his awareness of his body; it is a result easily anticipated, but not fully desirable if Jim is to regain consciousness on an appropriate timeline. Spock finds Jim’s breath and intensifies their awareness on it. Jim is present with him, breathing consciously.

Spock embraces their togetherness and begins a healing trance, their breaths together steady, their heartbeats synchronizing—70 beats per minute, very slow for a Vulcan, natural for a human at rest—and he joins Jim in that wordless blankness.

***

When he draws his own consciousness together, begins to close his fear and vulnerability and rage, one by one, Jim’s mind rouses from its silence.

 _Don’t leave me,_ he says.

It takes much of Spock’s concentration to sever their pain, their regret, their sorrow. He must leave his captain with something, now, with some words that will provide him solace in the quiet of his own mind. The words come to him by instinct. They are from his own mind, but he is imagining them spoken in Jim’s voice, before a sea of graduating cadets, in the hall where their eyes had first met. Jim had stood straight and tall before newly minted Admiral Pike and spoken as if he understood the words, with reverence, with awe.

 _Space:_ Spock says softly, _the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before._

Everything is silent. He inhales deeply with Jim, one last time, withdraws his calm, and opens his eyes in the hospital room.

Beyond the screened window it is dark. There is an orange lamp glowing on the table on the captain’s far side. Doctor McCoy is sitting in a folding chair that had not been present when Spock entered the meld. His face is pillowed in his hands, his fingers digging into his dark hair. A second chair is pulled beside his, and Nyota is sitting in it, looking right at him, perfectly calm.

He withdraws his hand from the Captain’s face, aware suddenly of the muscular stiffness in his body. The chronometer reads 2322. He has been in the mind meld for fourteen hours.


	5. five.

Spock wakes at 1100 hours to the soft cheep of Nyota’s comm. He is in his own bed, in her arms, the sheets not tangled as they so often are in the morning. She shifts behind him and kisses his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “It’s Leonard—I told him not to bother us until eleven. Seemed like you needed the sleep.”

Spock has no immediate recollection of returning to the apartment or falling asleep. He seeks in the corners of his mind and finds a dark image of Nyota’s hands. She had removed his uniform, peeling it from him with utmost gentleness, whispering soothingly to him in his native tongue. This is all he knows.

“I thank you,” he answers, and reaches the comm, turning to hand it to her. Her hair is still in its style from the day before. She is wearing her underclothes, but her eyes are not as bright as usual. “You have not slept,” he says.

“No,” she said. “I needed some time to think. It’s been hard to have time, with the city…” She makes a gesture that encompasses all of what the city is. She has spent a great deal of time with the repair crews. Spock has not. Many of his days have been passed in air-conditioned rooms, frigid to his comfort, speaking to admirals and ambassadors and men with no titles or names.

Nyota’s mouth curls delightedly when she opens the comm and reads the message that awoke him. “Leonard and Phil’s team think it’ll be safe to wake Jim the day after tomorrow,” she says. “His vitals have improved dramatically overnight—” The slight change in her pitch indicates that she is reading the message aloud. “—and his pain levels are _twenty percent_ of what they’d gotten to yesterday. They’re going to be able to switch him from the inducers to painkillers late tonight. And his immune system has skyrocketed. Eighty-seven percent capacity—” She laughs. “Leonard says it was steady at seventy-two percent for the two months before the incident.” She takes a shuddering breath that he feels against his back, lies back against the pillow, shuts the comm, and closes her eyes. “It worked. It _worked_.”

After a moment she looks at him. “You aren’t happy,” she says, and then makes a face. “I’m sorry, I just—I expected—it’s unfair of me. I’m sorry.”

“Your assumption was not without a basis in logical deduction. I have had several emotional outbursts in relation to Captain Kirk’s condition,” he says. She props herself up on her elbows.

“Yeah, you have,” she says, a little sharply. “So why is it that you can have outbursts of rage, and fear, and all those things for him, but you can’t even crack a smile when it turns out he’s going to survive this disaster? I’m _sorry_ , it’s not fair of me, but I don’t understand, Spock, and I haven’t been able to tell where you’re at—oh, not like that, you know exactly how often I’ve known your physical location, probably to the tenth of a percentage point—I haven’t been able to _ascertain your state of mind_ since this started.”

“Nyota,” he says, still lying on his back with the covers too neatly spread across their legs, “we have spoken of this before. The differences in our enculturation make it incumbent upon you to explain to me when my actions cause you undue distress at the time that they are doing so, rather than in retrospect.”

“It’s hard to tell you you’re grieving wrong,” she says. “Or you’re not grieving the way I want or expect you to. This isn’t a matter of our relationship or your regard for me, it’s just… sometimes I feel like I need to actually get inside your head to know what’s going on there. I wish things for you, actions, that would be unnatural for you.”

“You desire a different partner.”

“Yes and no,” she says, and Spock is so very tired of those words.

“You cannot have both,” he says. “You will have me, as I am, or not. It is not fitting for you to ask me to change for you, nor for me to ask for your expectations to adjust to the reality of what I offer. Nyota, I do feel for you. I hold you in regard. I cherish our time together. I appreciate the way we serve one another’s needs. I experience sexual attraction to you frequently, and I am grateful for you. I find you a desirable partner in ways beyond reasonable count. But the trivialities and intimacies that human couples share are not a part of a Vulcan’s mating relationships. Most particularly not before permanent bonding.”

“I’m not asking it of you as a Vulcan,” she whispers. “Your mother—”

“Respected and supported every choice that I made, even when those choices turned from her own cultural heritage. Even when it meant that I left behind the human things she taught me. It was my choice, Nyota.”

“Sometimes it was a choice,” she says, “but sometimes you can’t help what you feel.” She is looking at him desperately, pleadingly.

“You insinuate that I could choose to cease feeling for you,” Spock says.

“But not for Jim,” Nyota says. Her eyes are large, but not sad.

“Do you wish to terminate our relationship?” he asks.

“Only if you believe it is untenable,” she answers. He considers again.

“I do not,” he says, and makes a gesture between their bodies. “This… is precious to me. There is more that we can explore to resolve that which we have spoken of. I feel it would be unwise to end something that has been so beneficial, to both of us, in a time of such… emotional compromise.”

“I’m not compromised,” she says. “Does that matter?”

“Perhaps you are not, but my state of being has inexorably affected yours. We, together, as a relational unit, have been compromised by situations beyond our ken.”

“We have been for a long time,” she says. “Since Vulcan. But if we’re willing to acknowledge that—to find common ground, or at least make the attempt to do so—I don’t want to give up.”


	6. six.

Spock returns to the hospital that night while Nyota and the senior crew members eat dinner together in a noisy establishment in what remains of the city center. Doctor McCoy has joined them, and Doctor Boyce has retired for the evening. The captain’s hospital room is lit by a lamp. There are three chairs still beside the bed. Spock takes one of them and watches the quiet face of his friend for a long moment.

“Captain,” he says finally, aloud. “I could not ascertain, from our meld yesterday, whether you are aware of external voices. But I did feel your loneliness, and it is my wish that you should not be lonely. You asked for me to remain within your mind. I cannot be certain, either, if you were aware of what you were asking.” He pauses. Everything he has said is true. It is sufficient to explain his presence, if Jim’s consciousness and wellbeing are affected by external voices, as his comrades seem to believe. But he feels that he has not completed.

“I wish for you to wake. I wish to speak with you. I wish to grieve with thee for Admiral Pike.” He tightens his jaw. “I do not wish to be emotionally compromised any longer. Your physicians have informed us that your induced coma with end at 0900 hours tomorrow morning. This seems to me, most illogically, to be too long a time. I trust the advice of the medical professionals to deem when best to rouse you. I do not think doing so prematurely would be wise. And yet I wish for you to wake at this moment and greet me.”

He takes a deep breath. It is unsteady, although he does not require additional oxygen and he is not ill. He says, “I believe what I am saying is… I have missed you, Captain.”

The golden head shifts slightly on the pillow. Spock’s attention was already undivided; now it is hard and honed with great precision. The lines of Jim’s face, the frown that has held it for days, have relaxed. Spock examines his own thoughts and deems himself still compromised. He is not certain if his instincts are logical. He determines that they can cause no harm. He touches his fingertips to the back of Jim’s hand.

Before there had been muffled light, wordless pain, _don't leave me_ , but the mind is now full of activity. Spock cannot feel more detail, not without entering a meld, but the commotion seems not dissimilar to a dream state. Jim makes a soft sound, as humans make in sleep. His mind is more disordered than any Spock has experienced, but it brings him satisfaction nonetheless. He withdraws.

On the chart beside him, a series of bars of green light reduce in height slowly by an average of approximately fifteen percent. Spock examines them.

They measure the captain’s brain activity.

Fourteen seconds later, his communicator beeps insistently. _Incoming call from: Doctor McCoy._

“I automated alarms to send directly to my comm if anything crazy happened,” he says without preamble, speaking loudly over background noise, “and it’s telling me something crazy happened. Talk.”

“I briefly interfaced with the captain’s mind through physical contact,” Spock says. “When I withdrew, I viewed an increase in brain activity on the charts that was immediately dissipated. I hypothesize that—”

“Look, we knew your voodoo helped,” the doctor interrupts. “Don’t act surprised. Except—that was a dramatic jump. Brain activity was still in the orange when I left—that’s under sixty. It just hit eighty. That was my marker. Where is it now?”

“Sixty-four percent.”

“I’m on my way there. I’m going to make your girlfriend pay for my drinks.” He pauses. “Don’t… don’t touch him again. I want to be there.”

***

The doctor arrives thirty-four minutes after the termination of their comm. To avoid contact with the captain is difficult during that interval. Spock sits in the chair with his fingers interlaced, and gives in to the impulse to look at the doorway every time he hears footsteps.

When he does arrive, Nyota and Ensign Chekov are on his heels. Nyota’s lips are tight. She looks at the captain before meeting Spock’s eyes and nodding to him. He is not certain of the relevance of that nod. He has asked no question of her aloud; the only question that comes to mind asks the reason for her presence, and that cannot be answered with a nod. He does not speak.

“Ze doctor attempted to sneak out vithout explaining to us,” Ensign Chekov says, “but ve vere not so easily thrown off.”

“Your observations were undoubtedly astute,” Spock says, hoping some acknowledgement of the young man will keep his energy at bay so the doctor will not be distracted. To McCoy: “His brain activity levels have remained within the interval of sixty-three to sixty-six percent since the termination of our call.” They are now at sixty-three exactly. “I surmised from your communication yesterday morning, and subsequently, that it would be undesirable for the captain to regain consciousness before the appointed time.”

“He’s still on a hell of cocktail,” McCoy says. “But increased brain activity is increased brain activity—”

“As that is a tautological statement—”

“—damn your logic, man, I’m trying to answer your question!”

“I asked no question, doctor.”

“Shush, Spock,” Nyota says, not unkindly.

“If we can wake him without hyposprays and stimulants—well, I can’t exactly call your method natural, but it’s better than the chemical shit we’d be giving him. If we can avoid pumping more drugs in his system, I’d prefer that.”

“We have discussed previously, doctor, that Doctor Boyce’s status as the captain’s attending physician uniquely qualifies him to make major medical decisions. Has he been appraised of the situation?”

“Phil’s asleep,” McCoy answers, “and you’re not listening. I didn’t say I wanted to wake him now. I just said, if you can do it, maybe we won’t have to muddle any further with hyposprays.” He grimaces. “Don’t tell Jim I said that. Or maybe do tell him, so he believes I have a soul.” He holds a finger in Spock’s face. “If you start talking about the illogicality of the human concept of souls, I swear—”

“Vulcans believe in souls,” Nyota says before Spock can interject. “Or, something similar, at any rate—and they have the evidence for them. The katras, their eternal essences. Surely you’ve read about them in studies of Vulcan end-of-life care.”

McCoy looks uncomfortable. “Sure, yeah,” he says. “I just meant—seems like the sort of thing you like to latch on. I didn’t make the connection. Just thought… The idea of a soul seems pretty damn illogical to me.”

“And yet you were the one who raised the topic.”

“Bah,” he says. He’s positioned himself on the opposite side of Jim’s bed. He puts a hand to Jim’s forehead and looks at the charts, which remain resolutely at the same levels.

“There goes that theory,” he mutters. “Okay, Spock, give it a go. Can you pull yourself back out after ten seconds?”

“Affirmative. Since I am not entering a full mind meld—merely a light interface—I will have no trouble withdrawing at a preset interval.” He looks up at Nyota, who is positioned standing, at his shoulder, and across at Chekov, who has settled in a chair on Jim’s other side.

He sets the tips of his fingers against Jim’s forearm, as if taking a pulse, and restrains himself from his instinct to immediately begin to catalog the chaos.

There are voices in the field of activity, but they are not Jim’s own—or not all of them, at any rate; it is difficult to identify if any of the voices in the tones of children might belong to a youthful James Kirk. Dreams, memories, some amalgamation thereof—Spock hears an older man’s voice saying, _Goddamn it, you punk!_ and a middle-aged female saying, _Citizen, I am placing you under arrest,_ and a voice that is unmistakably Doctor McCoy’s, _I didn’t ask for a friend, kid,_ and he has overstayed ten seconds. He withdraws. No one is looking at him. Their eyes are on the charts on the wall. Eighty-two percent… and falling.

“How long were you there the first time?” McCoy asks, moving to the charts and scribbling on his PADD without looking at it.

“A similar interval of time,” Spock says. “Perhaps eleven or twelve seconds.”

“Okay,” he says. “So we don’t know what would happen if you stayed in longer. Can you tell anything? About how he’s doing? What we should be prepared for?”

“Negative. His mind is in a dream state, or its approximate equivalent. I have not had any indication that he is aware of my presence in these two intervals. There has been no conveyance of emotion or information. Furthermore, I have no available data for comparison between his consciousness at present and a past state of health.”

Chekov is holding Kirk’s hand between both of his own, looking into his captain’s face. “He is not afraid?” he asks.

“As I stated, I have not experienced a conveyance of emotion.”

“What’s he dreaming about?” Nyota puts in.

“His past, I believe. They may be memories rather than dreams. Again, without a baseline for comparison—”

“We’ll try again at 0700 hours,” McCoy says, “and—with Boyce’s okay—use increasing intervals to see if we can get his brain activity to stay up.” He waves a hand at the chart, which has settled back in the sixties. “We’re supposed to start weaning him off the inducers at 0900, so that should give us some time for you to muck around in his brain, see if he’ll grace us with a wake-up.”

“Vill you need to be alone?” Chekov asks. He looks anxious, bent over in his chair as if curving around the captain’s body to protect him. Spock feels a spike of something upon drawing this comparison and suppresses it efficiently, not allowing himself to analyze it. He has no time to be compromised at present. This quick suppression may cause the emotion to resurface at a later time, perhaps with greater strength, since he has not followed his own procedures to examine its roots. He is willing to take the time later to work through it, rather than now.

“Yeah, I think it’s best if we keep it no visitors. I can’t afford the risk of distraction, and you never know what Jim’s going to be like when he wakes.”

“Okay,” Nyota says softly, and looks at Spock. “Should we go now? You’ll need rest…?”

Spock looks at his captain’s face and allows his lips to pull downward as he considers. “I have a matter to discuss with the doctor in private,” he says. “I will keep you appraised of the situation tomorrow as it is possible for me to do so.”

She blinks, understanding the dismissal—that she should return to her own quarters, instead of to his—and accepts it without an emotional reaction. She puts a hand on Chekov’s shoulder, and he straightens and pulls himself out of his chair. “Good night,” she says softly, and Chekov follows her out.

McCoy has been taking notes on his PADD, but he looks up as soon as they’re out of the room. “I get the feelin’ you want to chew me out about something. Either that, or you just lied through your teeth to them about not knowing how he’s doing.”

“Vulcans do not—”

“Oh, come on, I was online when you promised Khan there was no trick.”

“Then you were clearly inattentive. I informed him that the torpedoes were his. This was entirely honest. It was the contraband concealed within them that was not present. With or without the contents of the smuggling compartment, all of the torpedoes were his.”

McCoy huffs angrily. “Of course!” he says, and throws up his hands, turning his body away from Spock. “So maybe I should have said something about deception or sabotage instead of lying, since clearly the distinction is so important to you.”

“Doctor,” Spock says, “I can predict, with some confidence, the unproductive directions this conversation will lead if we do not turn our attention to the matters at hand.”

McCoy puts his PADD down, covers his face with both hands, and lets his fingers run across his eyes and down to his chin. Then he pulls them away and says, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He gives Spock a look of further accusation and says, “Don’t look so damn surprised, you green-blooded hobgoblin. I can admit when I’m being an ass. I’m tired as hell, and you know I’m cantankerous on the best of days, but… There’s more important shit on the line here. Talk to me.”

“The memories I encountered—if they were, in fact, memories—were of a universally negative nature. Did you, at one point in time, say to Captain Kirk, ‘I didn’t ask for a friend, kid?’” He expects the doctor to mock his quotation, but instead McCoy’s jaw just tightened.

“I told a snot-nosed _Cadet_ Kirk that,” he says, “going on four years ago. Drunk off our asses and he started getting personal. Not my proudest moment, although it was true. I hadn’t looked to make any friends, more’n a decade older than the average cadet.” He scrubs his hands over his face again. “Goddamn it. I mean, I shoulda known he wouldn’t forget that.”

“It was one of several memories I encountered, absent any emotional connection or judgment of which I was aware. But the others also seemed unpleasant. An arrest, a reprimand from an authority figure. I cannot be certain of the implications of this, but I felt it was information to which you—but not the others—should be privileged.”

McCoy turns to his patient silently, sits in the chair that Spock has vacated, and leans forward. His gentle hand brushes the hair off Jim’s forehead, his facial expression deeply sad. He cranes forward and brushes his lips against Jim’s temple. “Okay, you sonovabitch,” he whispers, “almost time for you to wake up.” He pauses, pushing the hair back again and watching it fall back into place. “I didn’t ask for you, but I got you, Jim. It’s been a hell of a ride, but I wouldn’t have it another way, you hear? Get your ass back here.” He looks up at Spock, and his face is pieced together of sorrow and defensive anger and pride. “Go ahead,” he says, and steps back, “your turn. Have some words at him. Maybe he can hear it.” 

Spock does not speak to the relative likelihood of that outcome. He takes the doctor’s place at the bedside and tentatively lets his fingers brush the tips of Kirk’s hair without coming into contact with his skin. “Captain,” he says softly, “I believe it would be wise to heed the advice of your chief medical officer. Your presence is missed. If you perceive me and are capable of complying, I ask… I would like you to endeavor to wake tomorrow.” He feels uncertain if his words will have been sufficient for Doctor McCoy. He senses that his own gesture is calming to the other man, and that is sufficient reason to continue. “Jim,” he whispers, “please return to us.” He withdraws and stands. McCoy’s face has paled. His fingers are trembling. He sets his PADD in the receptacle by the door, where the overnight nurses may find it if necessary, and gestures for Spock to follow him out.


	7. seven.

He has been drawn into (and pulled back from) the captain’s mind sixteen times, with each interval varying in its length. On three occasions, Doctors Boyce and McCoy had performed the prearranged gesture to request his early withdrawal, either of them touching the back of his free hand. The sudden assault of a second human mind was unmistakable and unpleasant, but in all three cases it had been necessary to determine whether changes in certain vitals were being caused independently of the psi-interface.

After the sixteenth intrusion into the captain’s consciousness, Spock’s exhaustion has begun to set in. He is not certain how much meditation would have been required before this endeavor to stave such a reaction, but it was certainly longer than the two-point-five stilted hours he had allowed himself before sleep.

Jim’s thoughts are no less jumbled, the memories no less sudden, but there are waves of thought there too. After this sixteenth attempt, Jim’s brain function has risen to eighty-two-point-six percent and is steady. Doctor Boyce has stated that eighty-five is the margin he wishes to reach before beginning the process of attempting to awaken his patient, but the progress has slowed dramatically. When, on the eighth try, they increased the interval to three minutes within Jim’s consciousness, brain activity had risen two percentage points per attempt for four consecutive attempts. Then the margin of improvement had become only point three percent. This time, the increase fades within one minute of Spock’s withdrawal, leaving them with no progress.

“All right,” Boyce says, “I think that’s the best we’re going to get. McCoy, pull back on the benzo. Commander, would you like to stay?”

“Provided my presence is not a disturbance to your efforts, yes.”

“Wait, Phil,” McCoy says, and finishes fiddling with the intravenous solutions. He turns to look at Spock. “I’m going to say it’ll be at least three hours,” he says, “and I can keep you posted. Go back to your apartment. Take a damn shower. Get a nap, if you do that kind of thing. Change into something presentable.” His orders seem sympathetic rather than derogatory. He shakes his head. “I don’t… I want you to be here when he wakes up. But I don’t want you to look like you’ve been through hell. He’s going to have enough to worry about without his goddamn guilt complex kicking in right away.”

Spock tilts his head. “Your logic is sound,” he says. “Do keep me notified, if you are able, of an updated estimate on his return to consciousness.” He turns to Doctor Boyce. “Have you calculated the odds of your efforts today being successful?”

“It’s not as scientifically precise as you prefer,” Boyce shrugs, “but I’d guess we’re at fifty-fifty today. I don’t want him to wake up screaming. I won’t let that happen. So if the pain spikes again, or the adrenaline, or something else goes off, I’ll stop. But our solutions—” He meets Spock’s eyes. “All of them.” He undoubtedly means the mind-melds and the serum, the things more difficult to speak of without emotional reactions. “They’ve done wonders for him. My gut says it’s going to work.”

“The human propensity toward instinct where science will suffice has always perplexed me,” Spock says, “yet in this instance, I am inclined to share your confidence.” He looks from one to the other, and says, “Should you have any desire for nourishment, I request that you inform me when you summon me to return. I will procure sustenance for you.” He pauses again. “You have my gratitude.”

“Once we know that it’s working,” Boyce says, “I’ll leave you guys to it. I don’t need to be here when he wakes up. I’ll come in once you’ve had your tender moments, you know, check up on the vitals.”

Spock returns three hours later with a tall thermal flask of black tea. The head of the captain’s bed has been raised by thirty degrees. His body moves slightly every few seconds now—he half-lifts his hand, turns his head away from the window, makes a soft sound, an exhale not quite a word.

“Pointy’s here for you too,” McCoy whispers from Jim’s bedside. “Anytime now, kid.”

“He is not conscious?” Spock whispers.

“No. But he’s gonna be. Looking at the numbers, it’s just… he’s just asleep, now. Dreaming. Very low sedation. If I made a loud noise, he’d probably…” McCoy looks up for the first time and smiles. Spock proffers the flask, and McCoy stands to take it and brings it to his lips with a sigh. “I never thought I’d get tired of coffee,” he says. “This still tastes like dirt, but at least it didn’t come from a damn bean.”

Spock’s comm chirps. McCoy stares at him murderously. “I passed your latest message on to Lieutenant Uhura,” Spock whispers. “That is undoubtedly her reply.”

“Goddamnit, man, if he wakes up from a two-week coma to the sound of your love letter, I swear—”

Spock thumbs the volume off and does not read Nyota’s message. McCoy purses his lips and returns to the readings on the wall. Spock lingers near the doorway, hesitant to draw near. For two weeks he has wished for little except for his captain to wake, but now he is oddly apprehensive. McCoy meets his eyes again, apologetic, and smiles. Their gazes both go back to Jim.

They wait, and he wakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, all! I'm working now and parts two and three. Part two, "that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven", will cover the two months after Jim's recovery. Then part three, "that which we are, we are" will cover the remainder of their time grounded (and will deal much and muchly with Pike), and part four "one equal temper of heroic hearts" will be the conclusion -- IN SPAAAAAACE.
> 
> Concrit is welcomed!


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